Gian Marco Heilmann, 37, never planned to have an artisanal fruit preserves company.

“If you would have asked me a year ago, I would have said like, ‘No way, I can't do that. Like, what?’” said Heilmann.   

But there he was on a recent afternoon in June, manning the Les Collines booth at the Summer Fancy Food Show in New York City. Les Collines (French for “the hills”) specializes in small-batch jams, jellies and preserves with “fruit-forward” flavors like Meyer Lemon Rosemary and Rhubarb with Vanilla Bean and Earl Grey.

“We preserve a flavor of a season, of a moment in time,” said Heilmann, “When you open my raspberry preserve in January, I want you to feel like, ‘Oh, man, I'm back [to] like, sunshine, it's summer.”

The New York-based business was one among more than 2,500 exhibiting at the massive specialty food trade show. For small startups like Les Collines, the Fancy Food Show is a major opportunity to get in front of retail buyers, potential investors and business partners. It’s also the last place you’d expect to find someone like Heilmann, who until recently, had no experience in the food industry.  

The CEO of Les Collines originally studied filmmaking at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles, and worked in media production and IT before transitioning to business development.

Divorce spurred Heilmann’s journey into the world of fruit preserves and jam making.

“It's the best thing that ever happened to me, just because I feel like there was a lot of personal self-growth that was coming, and I was looking for my next thing.”

Heilmann had worked alongside his now ex-wife to build a retail clothing business in New York. The unexpected turn of events offered a chance to start over with a new venture. There were several viable business opportunities according to Heilmann, but they failed to excite him.

“I convinced myself that like, ‘Oh yeah, the numbers are great, and this is great, it must be great,’ but it was not aligned with [me]. I think I acted out of fear,” he said.

When the opportunity to take over Les Collines came about, Heilmann says he had a gut feeling that it was the right one for him.

“When I walked in, before I shook the owner's hand, I knew . . . I knew that this will be my next thing,” he said, “There was a certain security like, I can do this. Like, ‘You're at the right moment, the right time.’”

Heilmann learned from Les Collines’ original founder, Brigid Dorsey, how to cook and prepare all her recipes over the span of three and a half months. There were mistakes along the way, like an entire batch of jam that had to be thrown out because Heilmann didn’t add enough sugar.

Heilmann said he learned the most from failures like this. “I got Brix meters,” referring to the tool that measures sugar content, “Then I started measuring every Brix content in every recipe.” Heilmann then determined and defined the acceptable ranges for Brix percentage and pH levels and updated all the recipes. He also redesigned and updated the product labels, making them FDA-compliant and more modern.

Heilmann officially took over the business in January 2026 and was on the show floor at the Javits Center six months later.

For him, the toughest part of the business journey has been overcoming mental hurdles.

“The hardest lesson I learned . . . is that I'm the only one standing in my way. And in order to break down barriers that I have internally, that means I'm looking a lot inside, doing a lot of internal work.”

Heilmann credits business coaches and mentors with helping him along the way and encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to invest in themselves.

Les Collines is not yet profitable, but Heilmann has an ambitious goal of 10x growth within two years, “Even if I get to 5x in that time frame, it's amazing . . . like, look how far I have come . . . Shoot for the stars, land on the moon. I'm happy with that.”

It’s been a sweet rebirth of both the man and his line of jams.

Written and photographed by Tina Trinh.